High on Fire: Snakes for the Divine (2010) Review

I had never heard of High on Fire before reading an issue of Terrorizer, although it seems they're very well known. I got their latest album, Snakes for the Divine, to see what it's all about.

The sound is a mix of stoner metal and sludge. The sludge parts are more obvious at first, but when they slow the pace down (as on "Bastard Samurai") you can hear how ultra-fuzzy the bass is. You can also hear the stoner metal on many of the solos, or if you listen closely to the bizarre lyrics.

The tempos are highly varied, with faster tracks such as the title track leading into some of the slower material. They seem equally adept at both speeds. The driving force behind the band, Matt Pike (formerly of legendary stoner doom band Sleep) shows that slow isn't the only thing he can do, as album highlights include both the slower tempo "How Dark We Pray", but also the faster "Fire, Flood & Plague".

The songs are catchy, but there's also a lot of instrumental virtuosity going on here. Every track is memorable and worthwhile. The only real downside to this album is that Pike's gravelly voice doesn't really add anything to the sound, getting lost in a wash of instruments which occupy the same sonic range and have the same rawness. Contrast this with a similar band, The Sword, whose vocalist (closer to the Ozzy range) contrasts with the music perfectly.



The Verdict: Snakes for the Divine is catchy, great stoner/sludge with a lot of meat on the bone. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Scar Symmetry: Pitch Black Progress (2006) Review

Metallattorney listed Swedish melodic death metal band Scar Symmetry as one of his favorite new bands of the last decade. That's good enough for me to check them out, so I picked up their 2006 sophomore album Pitch Black Progress.

First off, the music is good. It's mostly very hard-driving, with some good guitar solos. There are some power metal moments too, which is just fine with me. It's nothing particularly unique, but it's very good.

What sets Scar Symmetry apart from the legion of other melodic death metal bands is the combination of death growls and a clean, power metal vocal style. Other bands in the genre (e.g. Soilwork or In Flames) use clean vocals, but not in the power metal vein of things. It's hard to imagine someone could do both styles, but when their vocalist left (after their third album), they decided to replace him with two guys.

What sets Scar Symmetry apart, though, is also their downfall. The death growls are top notch: It's a very rich, thick sound, and he does it in two distinct pitch ranges. The clean vocals, on the other hand, are bad. He can't do it well: It's obvious he's trying to get a bigger sound than he can achieve, when he tries to be soulful it sounds pathetic, and he is often off pitch.

On the more growl-based songs, like the title track and "Calculating the Apocalypse", everything works, and they sound amazing. But on the clean vocal-based songs, like "Mind Machine" and "Dreaming 24/7", they sound disjointed and awkward. The problem is most obvious on "The Kaleidoscopic God". They manage to overcome the problem at times (see "Carved In Stone"), and sometimes he can almost pull it off ("Deviate from the Form"), but they would have been better off going in a different direction.



The Verdict: They could have been a really great melodic death metal band without anything to distinguish them from the crowd besides their talent, but instead they set themselves apart in a bad way. Everything else about it is great, though, and I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Bison B.C.: Dark Ages (2010) Review

I know I say this a lot: They sound like Remission-era Mastodon. But I think I'm entitled to say that a lot, as everyone and their mother wants to sign the next Mastodon (I think Relapse wants to sign the next twenty Mastodons). Bison B.C. is Metal Blade's attempt to sign the next Mastodon, and Dark Ages is these Canadians' third album.

They start the album off with a puzzling choice, the mellower and more subdued "Stressed Elephant". But once you get into that, it's clear they've decided to continue to improve on the progressive and slightly thrashy sludge metal of their breakthrough Quiet Earth.

As far as their sound goes, they seem more like an early-Mastodon clone than anyone else out there. It's very heavy, very sludgy, and there are caveman vocals galore.

While some sludge bands tend to sound better when they slow things down, Bison sounds better when they're fast. "Two-Day Booze" is a perfect example, a highlight of the album. Of course, they sound good slow, too; check out "Melody, This Is for You". And while Mastodon is too progressive for some, their fellow woolly mammals never let noodling carry them too far away. "Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn)" is the most progressive thing on the album, and it's a clear standout track.



The Verdict: This stuff is heavy and very catchy sludge, with just the right amount of progressive. As far as Mastodon sound-alikes go, Bison B.C. is near the top of the heap. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Danzig: Deth Red Sabaoth (2010) Review

I have been a Danzig fan for a long time, since I got the self-titled debut back in high school. I have the whole catalog, barring the second live album. His last three studio albums, while not terrible, have been extremely disappointing, and the one before that was industrial metal, not the Danzig I grew to love. But it's been six years. With the old school The Lost Tracks of Danzig tauntingly reminding us of the good old days, and a lineup including Prong's Tommy Victor on guitars and Type O Negative's Johnny Kelly on drums, there are a lot of reasons to have high hopes for Deth Red Sabaoth.

Doing some reading on the album, I found this: "I wanted to have an organic sound, bigger and thicker, so I went out and bought some 1970s Kustom tuck ’n’ roll bass amps to play some of the guitar parts through. You’ll hear real reverb, real tremolo on this album, which sounds completely different than the stuff that's done with computer chips". That vibe comes through loud and clear, and there's none of the industrial stuff to distract.

It starts out great. Opener "Hammer of the Gods" lets you know the album is definitely old-school, pre-Danzig 4 kind of stuff. The recording sounds like it could have been made in the 80's, and so does all of the guitar work. At the same time, you can hear the bass perfectly, and it's heavier than anything they could have recorded back then (check "Night Star Hel").

Any track on here could come from his early work. "The Revengeful" could be straight off Lucifuge, and has a lot of good pinch harmonics with a great groove. "Black Candy" and "Left Hand Rise Above" are How the Gods Kill ominous monologue tracks. There are plenty of extended guitar solos that could almost make you think John Christ is back (see "Rebel Spirits" or "Ju Ju Bone"). On top of that, he's gotten his old-school rock and roll sensibility back, as "On a Wicked Night" and "Deth Red Moon" attest.

OK, maybe it's not quite perfect. At 54, Danzig has lost a little bit of the snarl and swagger of his voice. Maybe it's not age, but because he doesn't have the legendary Rick Rubin pushing him to do better (well, he did great on 4 producing himself; not since then) [CORRECTION: Rubin also produced 4]. But other than that, the worst I can say is that maybe he shouldn't have tried to do a 10+ minute song, as "Pyre of Souls" doesn't play like an epic, but it plays as long as one.



The Verdict: Evil Elvis is back. This is the Danzig we've been missing for the last decade and a half, and I, for one, am ecstatic. Danzig has said this may be the last album for the band, and if so I'm glad they're leaving on a high note. It's damn close to being perfect, and I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Thoughts on Ozzy Osbourne's Scream

Not gonna get it. No way. Not a chance. First of all, he starts off by naming it Soul Sucka, like it's some kind of vampire rap album. Then he changes it to the name of an album by the great Tony Martin, the most underrated Black Sabbath vocalist. But that's not even the worst of it.

It looks like somebody (possibly from the Ozzy camp) messed with Zakk Wylde's Wikipedia page, because there's nothing about this anymore, but Ozzy just dumped Wylde without even telling him about it. He heard that he wasn't going to be playing on this album through the media, instead of hearing it from his friend of 20 years and godfather of his son. Most likely this is Sharon's doing (I can't help but think she was behind Ozzy's last couple of sellout albums, either). And letting Black Label Society headline the second stage at Ozzfest doesn't even come close to making up for it.

No Ozzy, I will not get this one. You are without a doubt the godfather of heavy metal, but in your mental state you haven't done anything good in the last ten years. It's time to retire.

Unleash the Archers: Behold the Devastation (2009) Review

Unleash the Archers is a Canadian metal band who released their debut album Behold the Devastation last year. Since I listen to a Canadian metal radio show (Powerchord) on a regular basis I was exposed to this excellent but little-known band.

The thing which will draw the most attention is they have a female singer, Brittney Hayes. She doesn't sing operatically, but instead more like a power metal singer. But the thing that will hold your attention is their style. They play a style of technical thrash (or progressive American-style power metal) with moments of melodic death and just a touch of metalcore. Their backup vocalist (a man) does some solid death/thrash vocalizing.

The music is very good. Instrumentally, they play with precision and conviction. The riffs and leads are complex, and almost progressive at times. But more importantly, the songs are catchy and powerful, and the vocal/guitar interplay drives the music forward--the combination is greater than the sum of the parts. Just listen to "Eat What You Kill" or "Black Goat of the Woods" and try not to throw up the horns.

In as few words as possible, it's like Raintime with a female vocalist, and every bit as good.



The Verdict: Behold the Devastation is an extremely impressive debut from a band which uses elements of technical thrash and power metal. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Son of Aurelius: The Farthest Reaches (2010) Review

Son of Aurelius is a new technical death metal band who look like they're still in high school (they may be). They discussed their debut The Farthest Reaches in the June Decibel, so I decided to pick it up.

For tech-death, these guys are not particularly brutal. With few exceptions (e.g. "Myocardial Infarction") they don't get any more brutal than, say, Between the Buried and Me. At first listen this really annoyed me, and I was going to write a scathing review.

But I gave it a second listen, and decided to take it on its own terms, not mine. These guys are very talented musicians, and they seem to understand how important bass guitar is to the Necrophagist-style of tech-death. The vocals are done in both a Shagrath-type black metal and a Necrophagist-style growl.

They seem to think, though, that instrumental virtuosity and cool riffs and solos are everything there is to doing technical death metal. Most of the songs are just a bunch of cool parts thrown together haphazardly. When they do manage to write a real song (like "A Champion Reborn") it comes out really well. But most of the time, they don't. "Facing the Gorgon" is somewhere in between the bad parts and the good parts:



The Verdict: Son of Aurelius shows a lot of potential on this album. Technically they are very proficient, and they seem extremely young, so they've got time to grow into their songwriting skills. Not a particularly impressive debut, but I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Exhale: Breathe (2010) Review

Grindcore, the other bastard child of metal and hardcore punk, has never gotten much traction outside of the UK. But every now and then, you've just got to listen to something as fast and aggressive as grind.

Sweden's Exhale is a deathgrind band, a much better style of grindcore because it combines the speed of grind with the brutality of death. Their latest release, Blind, proves that grindcore doesn't have to be just fast noise. Tracks like "Anger" and "Crushed" include slower, much groovier sections, and a few tracks (like "Fools") sound almost death n' roll, in the vein of a sped-up Six Feet Under song. A few, like "Turning Blind", are just downright catchy.

As with any grind, the songs are very short (averaging just under 2 minutes), and the transitions are abrupt. You can be sure they won't lose your attention.

One grindcore cliche is, of course, the use of sound clips, and Exhale doesn't do anything special with them. For example, the one on "Erased" ("think for yourself, question authority") was used by Tool.


(This is the album opener, "Edge". It was the only one I could find on Youtube, but I really wanted to use "Turning Blind".)

The Verdict: I was pleasantly surprised by Blind. It's definitely one of the most compelling grindcore releases I've ever heard. By actually writing good songs before they start grinding, Exhale has earned a 3.5 out of 5 star rating for this album.

Obscure Bands: Ram-Zet

Ram-Zet is an extreme avant-garde metal band from Norway. Though probably not obscure in their homeland (they've been nominated for a Norwegian Grammy) they are definitely unknown here in the U.S. Their sound is notoriously difficult to categorize (among those who have heard of them), drawing on elements of black metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, gothic metal, and melodic death metal, but refusing to follow any one of these traditions fully.

They have two vocalists: a male vocalist with a strained black metal rasp, and a female vocalist who has a gothic metal style.



The interplay between the two vocalists is very interesting; sometimes they contrast well, but other times they make it seem like one voice is smoothly transitioning into the next. Lyrically, it's appropriately about schizophrenia, and I believe they have followed a concept of a mental patient trapped in an institution which isn't exactly on the up-and-up through most (or all) of their albums.

They include a violinist as a full member of the band, as well as a keyboardist. The violin has never been put to better effect by a metal band--sometimes it provides atmosphere, but at other times it takes the lead to provide melodies unheard in other metal bands. The keyboards are, for the most part, background.

In terms of songwriting, they are very clever. They use strange time signatures and harmonies, but it never sounds awkward. Instead, they always seem to know exactly what they're doing, and they do it well. The music spans the emotional spectrum you might expect given the lyrical content (guilt, horror, pain, frustration, rage, etc.).

I own their first three albums: Pure Therapy (2000), Escape (2002), and Intra (2005). Their style is consistent, but it has enough variety within that I can listen to all three albums consecutively without getting bored once.



They are my favorite band you've never heard of, so you shouldn't be surprised that I give the first two albums 4 out of 5 stars and Intra 4.5 out of 5.

They also have a fourth album, Neutralized, which came out in 2009. You can count on me getting it and reviewing it here at some point. Until then, I'm not going to get bored listening to the releases I already have.

Howl: Full of Hell (2010) Review

Howl is a Rhode Island sludge metal band. Their debut full-length Full of Hell caught my attention when I heard it on the Relapse Records Podcast.

On a tangent now--What is it with sludge metal bands and female guitarists? Well, maybe Kylesa and Howl isn't enough to call it a trend, but it is unusual.

Back to the subject at hand. First thing I noticed about the album is the awesome cover art. It's sort of a John Dyer Baizley style version of the cover of Mercyful Fate's Melissa (I don't know whether Baizley actually did the art, but it looks like his work). This is, I think, a good sign, indicating they want to acknowledge the old school but live in the present.

But we don't buy it for the art. We buy it for the sound, and a good sound it is. Anyone who thinks Remission is the best thing Mastodon ever recorded needs to go out and get this album right now. Not that Howl is a carbon copy. They do have a similar, heavy sludge sound with caveman howling vocals, and the drums are one of the most interesting parts of it. But there are differences. They seem more confident and cohesive than Mastodon did at that point in their career. Howl is also a lot less southern-sounding (as you might expect). But the most important difference is, Howl is much more about the riff than about being progressive. And the riffs are good.

It is a very good listen. There is nothing wasted (except perhaps on the album closer) and there are some excellent tracks here, most notably "Heavenless" and "The Scorpion's Last Sting".



The Verdict: For a debut album, Full of Hell is very impressive and entertaining. Certainly it's not perfect, but they are a band to watch out for in the future. I would expect Baroness to follow Mastodon out of the Relapse lineup due to their more mass appeal, but Howl seems more like the kind of band to stick around and stay underground. I give the album 3 out of 5 stars.